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The skies were cloudy in Santiago this morning, but in the south of Chile, a rare sight occurred in the sky: a "ring of fire" solar eclipse. We watched it online. đź™‚ And even on our computer monitors it was breathtaking.

Sudoku and I are coding. She doesn't have any freelance work this morning, so she's working on some of our family projects, as am I.

Milkmaid is cleaning up around the apartment and washing the produce brought yesterday by "Wonderful Man Jr".

Carman's off work today, as usual on Saturday. He's been working from home most of the time now, but spending lots of time on the phone with his boss. His freelancing is starting to click. He got the "rising talent" status recently on one platform. But no coding for this morning; he's working out the chords for "Downeaster Alexa" on the guitar.

Rosebud just woke up and gave everyone their morning hug. Let's see ... Yup, she got bigger overnight again.

And finally, Doodle is hard at work on the farm, trying to get in his chores before the sun comes up. Yes, we're starting to do some farming, right here in the city. Doodle is doing the physical work for our top-secret pilot project and, later today, Rosebud will be doing the data collection.

I would argue that you’ve had one big trick that humans figured out over the last 500 years. Before computers, it was fossil fuels.

But now we’re discovering how to pull free mental work out of the ground. That’s going to be a huge trick over the next 50 years.

The idea that you can pull free physical work out of the ground, that was a really good trick, and it resulted in all of these exponential curves. But now we’re discovering how to pull free mental work out of the ground. [using Artificial Intelligence]

That’s going to be an equivalent, huge trick over the next 50 years. It’s going to create that same kind of inflection point, and it’s going to create even more opportunity and much more displacement.

I have a hard time understanding how the way that we best prepare the next generation for that future, is to have literally all of education policy, all of education decisions determined by folks that don’t really have a foot in that world.

I’m not saying that all of the sudden, “Oh, it’s about software.” The worst use of software in technology is in replacement of humans. This whole, “Oh, I give an iPad to a kid, and I walk away.” That’s craziness. AR and VR, that’s not going to be it, either.

It’s about human beings. It’s about the relationship that kids have with their peers, with adults. That’s what creates the motivation that creates the learning, but it seems odd to me that the purpose of school is to prepare kids for the future, and you don’t have people in the mix thinking about education or education policy, who are very familiar with the future at all.

[In a typical school setting] you say, “OK, well, I can’t grade 20 different demonstrations of knowledge that come back from 20 different kids, so I’m going to standardize, I’m going to say, ‘This is the way I’m going to test you, so that I can grade it quickly,’” you’re essentially training kids to think like computers. There’s an irony ... you’re training humans to do the kind of thinking that computers are getting better and better and better at doing.

You have an education system that was created for a mass production era, and now we’re in a mass customization era. You have a traditional education system that’s all about turning generalist agrarian producers into specialized consumers of goods and information. We’re entering an era where being a producer of knowledge, being a producer of goods, being a producer of jobs is the way to be successful. It is the way to be happy, and it’s possible because you have these unbelievable platforms that have been created that elevate the individual through the combination of digital technology and society.

The taxi battles are in full swing here in Santiago, including mass protests and even violence against some Uber drivers and, in a few cases, riders. What follows is an editorial from La Tercera (from around April 16th) that does a good job of capturing some of the nuances of the situation.

The citizenry has been heavily impacted by the images of taxi drivers assaulting Uber drivers. Some of the reported cases include high levels of violence and intimidation, and have even been directed towardthe passengers of these services themselves. These are unacceptable acts,for whichis needed an attitude of greater firmnessby theauthority, which has been limited to condemning the vandalism.

It was not appropriate that the Minister of Transport would initially qualify as "pirates" these type of drivers, because this unfairly muddies the image of these companies and gave rise to questions that likely could lead to violence. It is healthy that the government subsequently hastempered its judgments and is open to seek a regulation for these new services. But against vandalism government can not beindifferent, and it should give sharp signals that the integrity of citizenship is not in question. In this regard, it is essential to preserve the principle that legitimate protest can not be confused with violence.

The union of taxi drivers must assume that this new type of application-based service, with a model of flexible fleet and high standards, with competitive rates, will not be able to be stopped, because it respondsgenuinelytocitizen demands that the current system fails to satisfy. The union's threatening attitude,that these services "must be written off" as a solution, only contributes to their own discredit. The discussion should be oriented towards the taxi park opening and integration of new technologies that facilitate the transport service. Any difference or blame should be channeled through institutional channels, either to the Ministryorto the courts.

Doodle and Rosebud just love to sing, so I'm trying to work hard to stay ahead of them and feed them new music. This morning I thought of a very singable old song about an old turtle that the older kids really liked when they were that age, but I couldn't find the lyrics anywhere, so here they are:

Make a World to make Old Turtle Smile, by Douglas Wood

A breeze upon the lake helps make the world

A falling snowy flake helps make the world

A butterfly, floating by, helps make the world

A tall and growing tree helps make the world

A golden humming bee helps make the world

and every dream you dream helps make the world.

Every time we care, we make the world

Every time we share, we make the world

With every helping hand, we make the world

When we try to understand, we make the world

If we could only see we make the world

It's up to you and me to make the world

Maybe we can make a world to make old turtle smile

A river flowing clean helps make the world

A meadow growing green helps make the world

a falling star, falling far, helps make the world

a yellow harvest moon helps make the world

a summer afternoon helps make the world

and every laugh you laugh helps make the world

And every time we care we make the world

with every hug we share we make the world

with every helping hand we make the world

when we try to understand we make the world

if we could only see we make the world

it's up to you and me to make the world

Maybe we can make a world to make old turtle smile

But every lie that's lied, every lonely tear that's cried

makes the world more tired and weary, makes the world more sad and dreary

And every war that's started makes the world more brokenhearted

We have a special calling, you and i, to hold the light of love up high